Eternal Lonliness
by The Button Harlequin
Summary: What happens when Axel, Roxas, and Saix dare Demyx to investigate the old abandoned castle at the edge of town? And do the strange disappearances have anything to do with the lights and sounds coming from it?
1. I Dare U

I Dare U

A/N: Hi, my second Kingdom Hearts fic, and I'm hoping that this romance fic is going to be better than my past failures, but I have high hopes for this one because Zemyx is one of my favorite couples. For the mandatory disclaimer: I don't own any part of Kingdom Hearts or any part of the franchise, no matter how much I wish for it to happen. I apologize for any grammer incorrections or spelling errors, I only have Notepad and it's a piece of junk. But it's my piece of junk so I'll deal with it until I can get Microsoft Word. Enjoy the fanfic, and please do not hesitate to review if you have the sudden urge to do so. My doors are open to all, whether they be a Nobody, Somebody, or something inbetween.

Summary: What happens when Axel dares Demyx to go into the abandoned castle at the edge of town during the night? And what do the rumors of vampires have anything to do with the weird lights and voices that come with the moon?

Demyx was strumming his fingers on his guitar when he heard his blue cell phone buzz with the sound of bubbles. In bright red text, the screen said AXEL. Flipping open to the message, he read, 'Hey Dem, wat up?'

'Hi Ax, jst plyng mah gitar. U?'

'Iv got a dare 4 u. Roxy me an Sai made it up. U hve 2 go that haunted castle at da edge of town. Got it memorized?'

Demyx got a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach, and it didn't feel like this was going to turn out right. 'I dnt no Ax. Sounds like bad news 2 me.'

'Come on Dem.' Demyx could practically hear the egging in Axle's voice go along with the message. 'I dare u.'

Unfortunately for Demyx, he could never turn down a direct dare from anybody, no matter how awful that the dare was. Which more than once got him into a heaping of deep trouble. His fingers were heavy with dread as he typed four letters. 'Fine.'

'Gr8t! :) C u 2night!'

7:00 at night, October 25

Demyx's feeling in his tummy hadn't lightened up at all since he agreed to the dare. When Saix, Axle, and Roxas had picked him up from his house, his parents hadn't thought anything of it. They just made sure to keep the first aid kit on stand-by. While they walked to the very edge of town two miles from his house, the ameture musician kept up his facade of readily able trouble maker for the amusement of his friends, the thoughts or worry and fear swirled around his mind.

'Those rumors,' he thought, 'They're just rumors right?' For years, before any of them were even born heck before their grandparents were born, the rumors of odd noises and weird lights happening at night strolled around the town with either fear or humor. Demyx was inclined to think of them in fear. When he was a little kid, he walked past the castle, and swore he saw the face of some pale faced figure in the window, but when he double taked there was nothing there. He knew it was silly, but the fear lasted all the way to now, when he was fifteen.

"Demyx? Are you listening to us?" The one in question was pulled from his thoughts by the concerned voice of Roxas, whose blonde, blue eyed angel face was the only one even remotely worried for the safety of his friend. "Are you sure that you want to go through with this? That old castle is really old. You might get hurt."

"He'll be fine Roxy," Axle assured his best friend *cough boyfriend cough* and slipped his arm around Roxas's shoulders confidently, "He knew that if he didn't take the dare than Sai here and me would forever label him as a scaredy cat. Right Saix?" The tall blunette nodded silently and said to Demyx, "You kneww what you were getting into and I want to know if that castle is really haunted."

"Then why don't you go?" Demyx asked indignantly.

"Because everything seems to happen to you and nothing to the rest of us. And just be gald that we're not making you do it on Halloween or then there would be real Hell to pay. The biggest stuff always seems to happen on Halloween."

The chosen unlucky teen frowned with his best kicked-puppy-face, whimpering, "Great. That makes me feel SO appreciated and special. You meanies!"

Roxas patted his shoulder consulingly while Axle snickered and Saix rolled his eyes. They continued like this for about a mile before they then travled in silence the rest of the way, all of them feeling nervous now, and paranoid. Those rumors were nothing to scoff at, no matter who thought so.

They stood silently in front of the haunted castle, almost letting the overwhelming presence of foreboding consume them. The castle was classic old European, with four towers at each corner of the establishment, with statuettes of broken angels of war and cracked stone walls with climbing ivy. Some of the broken windows still sported shredded curtains of some un-nameable color that must have been pretty years ago. The front doors were more like gates or pure wooden walls that tried to pass as doors, for they stood (rather crookedly) at easily twenty feet of solid wood. The only way in or out of the castle was by the huge gap in the door/gate that came from the fact that the right one had to lean up against the left to keep standing. An open expanse that was about the size of a small field was dressed in dead leaves that came from skeleton bared trees and accsesorized in fallen stone debris that had come from the castle. It was ancient, so old that it had its own memories and experiences, and developed its own presence. So old, that no one knew its name anymore.

"This is where we leave you Dem," Axle tried saying nonchalantly, but came out as a sort of strangled squeak.

"You have your phone on you right?" Roxas asked, noting the sweat dropping from his friend's brow as he nodded slowly. A moment of silence passed between the four friends. Demyx felt a little shove that took him by surprise. As he stumbled and looked back, Saix looked him straight in the eye sternly and nearly ordered him, "Come back in one piece Demyx, or I'll tear you apart." Knowing Saix's berserker rages, Demyx knew that that threat was very scary and might really happen. 'Better be careful,' he thought as he nodded back with his cheesy grin to his serious yellow eyed friend.

"Don't worry guys, I'll be fine!" And with that, the one known as Demyx walked away from his comrades and through the space between the doors, never to come back the same again. And he never even knew it.


	2. II Meeting the Phantom

II. Meeting the Phantom

Demyx slipped through the doors and into the castle, taking a quick scan before continuing on. He had entered some sort of lobby-like area, with twin spiral staircases that lead to a sort of balcony like overture that loomed over. Paintings spaced the crumbling walls like some sort of sick reminder of what the castle had once been, a center of commerce and luxury, not a place where ghost stories overwhelmed its true history, blanketing it rumors and false truths.

Demyx walked slowly through a side hallway, getting the creepy feeling of someone watching him, and that whoever it was, was VERY angery. 'Wow, it's like that time when I spilled my soda all over Saix and he glared at me for the rest of the day,' Demyx thought with a nervous smile. The memory was a fond one, if not particularly happy. He wandered throught out a large part of the castle fro what felt like hours, and for all he knew it was, the little light allowed in cast a forever twilight onto the walls, and he couldn't ell if he had been looking in and out of rooms for two hours or two minutes.

Clack clack clack...

Demyx whipped around at the sound of footsteps following him, but there was nothing there except empty space and cobwebs. "Hello?" Demys called out nervously to the darkness and shadows, "Is anyone there?" Not a sound, except for Demyx's nervous breathing. "I guess there's nothing there," he said to himself, face-palming the second afterward. "Great. Now you're talking to yourself. You're talking to yourself and actually reassuring yourself in the process. You're making yourself crazy you psycho. AND you're talking to yourself in third-person. Stop talking to yourself!" Demyx's conversation with himself brought him to a courtyard that had a single fountain blessing it, with a large tree with it's bare limbs open to the elements shading it, like a silent sentry guarding it with its wide limbs, holding it into an embrace that couldn't touch the cold stone of the fountain. But it wasn't any of this that had drawn his attention. It was what was cradled in the branches of the tree.

There was somebody there, cloaked in shadows and seemed to be resting in the silent sentry's cold arms. Although Demyx couldn't actually see them, they seemed to be small in stature and slender. Like they knew that he was watching them, the shadow of the figure's head turned slowly to him, and appeared to be looking directly at Demyx.

"U-um, h-hello," Demyx managed to stammer out, "My name is Demyx Nocturne, I came here on a dare. Who're you, and what are you doing here?" Suddenly, the figure stood up, never taking its shadowy gaze from Demyx. He noticed that the branch the sillouette stood upon was thin and paniced. "No! Don't do that!" he cried urgently, "You'll break the branch! Just wait right there and I'll come help you down." The shadow person did the slightest tilt of his head, and then just vanished. Right in front of his eyes. POOF! Not even that, the person just faded into a wisp of smoke.

Demyx took an involuntary step backwards. "What was that?" That defied all the things that he had ever been taught, and it didn't even give him any insight to the mystery at hand! He turned around in the same spot, doing a 360 before he started to call out wildly to the air. "I don't know who you are or what you are, but I want to know how you did that! Tell me who you are!" A short chuckle, low and cynical, it came from behind. Demyx's heart was pounding with the fear as he turned his head slowly. There. The figure was there.

"Wh-what are you?" his voice was so weak, he was so scared, the trembles shook his body so much. The beams from the moon escaped from behind the clouds, casting light onto the darkness of the the courtyard in a dim sort of way. Demyx sucked in his breath, expecting a hideous mess of...something. But just inches from the feet of the shadowed figure, it faded into a wisp of smoke again, as silently and foggy as before.

Demyx took took another involuntary step backwards. "Are you a ghost?" he cried into the night, to the moon, to the cold autumn air, to the observing tree.

"No," a cool and steady voice said, happening behind him again. This time Demyx whipped around, ready for the dark figure to disappear at a moments notice and didn't want it to go too quickly, no matter how much it filled him with terror. But it just stood there this time, it the darkness of the fountain, its back apparently to him. "I am no ghost," it said to him, with its back still turned, "but I do remain from the highlights of a better time for this place. So, in a way, I am a ghost, but at the same time not one at all."

"So, does that make you a...phantom?" the adreniline in his veins told him to run away as fast as he could, but his feet wouldn't move from the fear.

The figure tilted his head again, like the time before, the same contemplating way. "That seems to be more poetic than what I am, but it's more or less the correct thing."

Demyx had determined that the voice was male and very wise, like the person in possetion of it had seen everything the world had to offer, and then some that it had hidden away. "Then-then, you've been here a long time?"

"Yes, a very long time."

"Why?"

The figure hesitated. "I don't really know the answer to that one," he said, "I've stayed here for so long that I think that I might've forgotten. But I do remember that I stayed fora reason, a special person. Ah, that's right, I stayed for myself, a selfish reason, but I was happy."

"If it makes you happy, I don't think that it's selfish," Demyx said, surprising himself. Why was he having a conversation with someone he couldn't even see? For all he knew, he could be a serial killer waiting for the chance to strike. But he couldn't help himself, this person didn't have that kind of air. His mind was telling him to leave, to run, but his feet did the opposite. He took a step toward the shadow man.

Step.

"Do you think so? Even when it made the people around you to be sad, angery, even miserable?"

Step.

"Even then. Everyone deserves happiness, right? If it makes you happy, then you should do it, stay and be happy I mean."

Step.

"But stay to the point of making the ones you loved the most cry, tear at themselves, eventually kill themselves?"

Halt.

"Did they do that?" Demyx felt a sadness for the small looking shadow, a sorrow he couldn't place.

The shadow nodded. "They did. And I'm the reason for it, the one and only. Does this person truly deserve happiness? After everything I've done, I'm the last person that should be given happiness."

"I think that everything you've been through, I think you're the person who needs happiness the most," Demyx said with a conviction he wasn't even sure that he could place, let alone know what it was. All he knew was that this was saddest person he had ever met, and that he needed to be smiling and should be filled with joy. To Demyx, everyone should be happy, and he went out of his way all the time to do that, for everybody, even strangers.

Step, step, step... he was so quiet, what was he-

"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" Demyx stopped in his tracks, surprised and a little bit scared. The figure was tensed, like he was ready to vanish at any second. "I should never be given any sort of thing like that!" he spat, "Only sweet people like you could ever say that and mean it, but you're so naive and young, you don't know what you're talking about! Just go home away from here, and don't come back again. You don't know what you're talking to..." His voice faded, and Demyx got the sudden image of a sad person, rolling tears, silently crying, all alone, thinking they don't deserve happiness. So much sadness just coming in rolling waves from this shadow person.

"Don't say that, phantom," Demyx said gently, taking another tentative step forward, "I know that you're sad and that you're in so much regret that you can't pick yourself up without help. So I'm going to help you. All you need to do is let me help you, okay?"

That's it, only three steps left and then he would be able to be within seeing distance-

"I TOLD YOU THAT YOU SHOULDN'T COME CLOSER! I'M DANGEROUS, SO STAY AWAY!" the shadow spun to face him, his body language full of anger, and...was that fear? "I am something that's not suppose to exist, I am the evil thing that steals the souls of the living to use as my food! I am the thing that lurks in the back corners of your darkest nightmares, nothing more than a lowly demon. So please...leave. Before I taint someone as sweet and good as you..."

"I don't think you would do that," Demyx said plainly, like he was talking about the weather, with a small and pitying smile on his face for the person that he didn't even know, "I don't know why, but I feel like you could do that, but you wouldn't. It's something I can't explain, but it's like you're too sad to do anything bad because you don't want to make anyone else sad." The shadow's shoulders slumped, with what he couldn't say, but he continued on, "I know that I'm not right a lot of the time-well never. But I know I'm right his time! I can't be very smart because I'm talking to someone I don't know in the dark where no one else is around who I can call for help if you do anything funny, but I'm glad that a person doesn't need to be smart to happy or help a person to be happy. So this one of the only things I can do for people, so I know."

"But you don't know," the shadow whispered, "You can't trust me. You need to go home so that you're safe..." The light from the moon slipped out from behind the clouds again, sliding around the fountain to outline a slender figure of a male, a few inches shorter than Demyx and dressed in a dark turtleneck close fitting to his small body, a pair of dark jeans, and plain black boots. His drooping head caused his slate colored hair to fall into his face, causing it to be completely hidden.

'He's so modern looking,' Demyx thought, then frowned. 'Wait. Modern looking?'

"How come you look so normal?"

"You need to go home...So that you're safe...," the man said quietly, raising his head to look into Demyx's eyes. Demyx couldn't help but gasp at the beauty of the person in front of him. He had only a second to see, for the boy shot towards him at speed that his eyes couldn't follow, making him a blur. His nose came only an inch from the other, stopping right in front of him before swiping the back of Demyx's neck with the side of his hand. Demyx's breath hitched, and he fell forwards. He was unconsious before he fell into the slender, but surprisingly stong arms of the smaller individual, held as gently as a newborn.

He looked to be the same age as Demyx, but far more mature. He was paler than anyone he had ever met, his skin causing to absorb the very light that bounced away. His hair was slate colored, that hadn't been an illusion of the pale light, and fell into his left eye so perfectly as to cover it. The other eye was as blue as colbalt, as deep as the sea.

And it was crying.

11:33 pm October 25

Knock! Knock! Knock!

The Phantom pulled away from the door of the white picket fence house soundlessly, and into the tree across the street, one that still had most of its leaves at this time of year. He heard the curious voice of a woman say, "I wonder who that is? I suppose Demyx got into trouble again." The door opened slowly to reveal a woman who looked similar to Demyx in her late thirties and she gasped. "Robert get out here!"

"What is it Mary?" the concerned voice that belonged to a blonde man in his forties that looked like an older version of Demyx himself. "Christ Mary, bring him inside! Why is Demyx's on the doorstep?" The man called Robert, the boy's father, pulled his son's limp arm around his shoulders and carried/dragged his son inside the house, with the boy's mother following in close behind, shutting the door behind her.

Phantom sighed with relief, knowing that the sweet boy would be fine. He didn't hit him too hard, only just enough to make him sleep until morning. There wouldn't be any side affects, and hopefully he would never come back again, too scared to. He would be safer there, far away from the phantom or the people that followed with him, or came after him. If he could trail after the scent of Demyx's weak trail to his home, than so could the others. He couldn't let anyomre people die because of him.

"Why didn't you devour him, Zexion?"

The phantom, Zexion, didn't even bother to turn around. He knew that the person had been following him since he took Demyx away from the castle. "Because Marluxia, he was too much like her. He said the exact same things that she would have said had she still been alive. And he was too sweet for me, you know that I only go after the sour and bitter ones."

"Maybe you perhaps, but I would have loved to become the diner to that fine meal," Zexion could almost see the way Marluxia licked his lips with hunger. "The least you could have done was put a little of his blood in a bag for me."

"No, then you would have wanted the whole plate, not a morsel that was collected by me."

"Too right, too right. But you know, while we're on the subject of dinner pleasures, I've noticed that you haven't been going hunting with us in a while. How long has it been, four weeks now that you haven't had any food?"

Zexion's stomach growled at the word, and Marluxia snickered at Zexion's blush that he could see without actually looking at him. These things were easy to do after you've known the person for over 700 hundred years. "I will eat when I need to, not before."

"Then you better hury Zexion. The Way can't be held back for long." With a small hiss, Marluxia disappeared with a shower of flower petals, leaving the other alone on a tree branch in his memories and thoughts.

Zexion looked up into the moon through a hole inthe leaves, a cresent Cheshire smile grinning at him mockingly. He didn't want to feed, didn't want to steal, didn't want to hurt. But that was the way it was.

That was the way vampires survive.

A/N: Ok, just for the record I HATE Twilight and this is nothing like that piece of junk. I like ORIGINAL vampires, not those awful sparkly creatures that Meyer made up. I do not own Kingdom Hearts or vampires, but that would be so cool if I did. I would like your opinions of the story so far, and some suggestions of how you want this to go, although don't be insulted if I don't put your ideas in soon or at all. I keep my doors open to all, wether you be a Nobody, Somebody, or something inbetween. Have a good day. 


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